(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) The so-called oligarchs of Silicon Valley may have gotten the message loud and clear that the era of “woke” was finished when voters rallied in November behind President Donald Trump, following four years of Biden administration corruption and ineptitude.
However, California’s other cash-cow industry—Hollywood—not only doubled-down on its insufferable virtue-signaling, it tredecupled down, handing 13 Oscar nominations to Netflix’s Emilia Pérez—a Spanish language, French-made film starring transgender actor Karla Sofía Gascón, who received a “best actress” nomination, naturally.
Gascón squares off in the March 2 awards show against four female contenders who will either be forced to put on brave faces as they get beat by a biological man or will be more than happy to turn the ceremony into a political soapbox of their own.
That includes Wicked witch Cynthia Erivo, who helped subvert L. Frank Baum’s beloved allegory about America’s turn-of-the-century monetary policies and the tensions between industrialization and agrarianism into the latest showcase of postmodern critical race theory and intersectionality.
Another best actress-nominated film, I’m Still Here, pushes Brazilian propaganda. The film is almost certainly intended as a thinly veiled attack on Jair Bolsonaro, the “Trump of the Tropics,” who has seen the country’s corrupt judiciary wage a lawfare attack against him that makes the MAGA leader’s pale by comparison. The only thing less charming than hearing overpaid performers prattle on over issues they know nothing about is having unknown ones do so in thick Portuguese accents while pushing bogus, Soros-sanctioned narratives on issues that Americans know little about.
Demi Moore (who announced her Harris/Walz vote via Instagram during early voting last November) is the category’s frontrunner and the only familiar name in the batch nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which went out of its way to snub other well-known actresses including Nicole Kidman (Babygirl), Angelina Jolie (Maria) and Pamela Anderson (The Last Showgirl).
Anderson, the former Playboy model and Baywatch star, has been critically acclaimed in her dramatic turn. She was an outspoken activist in support of Wikileaks political prisoner Julian Assange prior to his plea deal last year. The former Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein supporter appears to have remained tight-lipped about her 2024 vote—unlike her ex-husband, outspoken Trump supporter Kid Rock.
Although best-actor nominee Timothée Chalamet’s turn as the iconoclastic Bob Dylan arguably captures the MAGA spirit, even if by accident, both the youthful actor and the legendary singer have enough leftist tendencies to make suspension of disbelief a challenge too steep to want to root for the 29-year-old upstart.
The category for “best performer who identifies as male” sees Chalamet going up against perennial prestige-film staples Adrien Brody (The Brutalist) and Ralph Fiennes (Conclave)—both innocuous, if uninspired, choices. Rounding out the category are token-black nominee Colman Domingo (Sing Sing) and the most obnoxious choice of all: Sebastian Stan for his turn as a young Donald Trump in the pre-election smear film The Apprentice.
Trump supporters were cautiously optimistic during filming that Stan might at least deliver an authentic, even flattering, portrayal—but alas, the screenings revealed that the unhinged movie depicted a fictionalized scene of Trump raping his then-wife, Ivana, who tragically died of blunt-force trauma from a fall down the stairs in 2022. The movie struggled to get a distributor after Trump threatened a lawsuit, until a Democrat megadonor answered the call.
Jeremy Strong also garnered a nod in the “best supporting person who identifies as a male” category for his portrayal of Trump mentor Roy Cohn.
HOW LOW CAN THEY GO?
Since bottoming out in 2021 with a roughly 6% market share and 10.4 million viewers—at a ceremony then declared to be the “wokest ever”—Oscar producers have sought to make superficial reforms in order to lure back audiences, while still failing to fully comprehend the root causes of the decline.
Granted, the strength of certain movies—and other mitigating cultural factors—may impact ratings from year to year; yet, the ceremony overall has seen a precipitous decline since its heyday in the 1960s, when movies like Ben Hur, A Man for All Seasons and Midnight Cowboy helped it to pull a more than 40% share of the television market.
Overall viewership peaked at 55,249,000 in 1998, the year Titanic dominated the awards while The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, As Good as It Gets and Good Will Hunting delivered memorable, statuette-winning performances.
The 2024 ceremony, with its “Barbenheimer“ buzz, held steady from the previous year at around a 10% market share with 19.5 million viewers.
This year’s Oscar ceremony also comes as the film industry as a whole continues its struggles to recuperate to the post-COVID paradigm shift, where streaming has largely supplanted theater attendance, perhaps due to the inflationary economy forcing families to prioritize basic necessities over substandard entertainment.
Box-office revenues have gradually recovered from their 2020 nadir, when domestic ticket sales accounted for a paltry $2 billion. But that total appears to have leveled off shy of $9 billion—or about $3 billion short of the 2018 peak.
The number of tickets sold, meanwhile, has been in steady decline for more than two decades after peaking in 2002, with around 1.576 million tickets sold that year. The post-9/11 cinematic year was all about blockbuster-style escapism—bookended in January and December by two Lord of the Rings installments, and chock full of blockbusters including Spiderman, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.
Curiously, the following year’s Oscars drew a notably weak (for the time) 20% market share, with Brody winning best actor for The Pianist, Kidman claiming best actress for The Hours and Chicago taking home the best picture award.
KEEPING THE FLAME ALIVE
Some have called recently for the Oscars to be canceled in light of the fires that have devastated Los Angeles.
Instead, producers and actors alike seemed to see the disaster as yet another opportunity for Hollywood elites to grandstand and reassert their ever-waning relevance.
“We will reflect on the recent events while highlighting the strength, creativity, and optimism that defines Los Angeles and our industry,” Academy Chief Executive Bill Kramer and President Janet Yang said in an email to members Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
They vowed to “celebrate the work that unites us as a global film community and acknowledge those who fought so bravely against the wildfires.”
Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.
